Six men were going home from
work together. They had been shingling the south gable-end of a new country
house, and the owner, a Boston man, had just telephoned down that everybody
might knock off work at three o'clock so that those who wished could take
the four o'clock train to town. Most of the gang
did wish this before the Fourth of July and they
were nearly all Boston men who had been sent down by the building contractor.
The six shinglers came down their ladder and walked away together. Jim
Fisher had his bicycle, but he trundled it along by hand and walked with
his mates. They could still hear hammers knocking in the great house where
some of the boys were lingering to end off part of the standing finish
in one of the lower rooms. Work was being rushed and they had set themselves
a stint, and loyally stood by to close the thing just right.

"I never saw a house put together
so quick," said a sober-looking fellow named Allison
to Jim Fisher, who turned to look back. "Quick's a
room's parted off, on go the laths, and before the lathers get out the
plasterers step in. Wonder the paperers don't chase them right round the
four wet walls."

"Takes some folks a good while
to find out that it's just as cheap to pay twenty men one day as 'tis to
pay one man twenty days," said Jim Fisher.

"There ain't many bosses can
handle a large crew to good advantage," said a wise round-shouIdered old
man who wore spectacles at his work and liked a good political argument
at noon over his dinner pail. He was the only one of the six who lived
in the town, and Charley Burrill had boarded with him all the spring. Charley
Burrill was a brisk-looking Boston fellow who did a first-rate week's work
and dressed himself with noticeable smartness on Sunday.

"You're right there!" said this
young man; "trouble's apt to be with the boss. Last job I was on, we were
standin' round most of our time waitin' an' tumblin' right over one 'nother.
Men come down from the city with all their solder furnaces an' riggin'
to do a piece o' the roofing before the roof was boarded. There was one
of 'em used to practice 'Anne
Laurie' on a cornet under the stone shed, an' miss the same note every
time, till one day a fellow went down out o' the third story to break the
old toot horn over his head."

"Wish I was a boss," said Jim
Fisher, cheerfully.

"No, you don't; not that kind,"
said old Thorndike. "Tell you I'm older'n you boys be, and I've noticed
ever since I was a boy myself that folks always done well that done their
fair day's work, an' all died poor that had a spell o' thinkin' they were
goin' to get rich out o' shirkin'. Nothin' for nothin's a pretty safe rule."

"No, I ain't, sir," answered
Abel, good-naturedly. "My ambitions all run toward practicin'. I'm goin'
to celebrate the Fourth o' July, though; perhaps you ain't aware it comes
to-morrow, or do you have a special one o' your own up to Boston?"

"What are you going to do, elder?"
demanded Jim Fisher. The six men had fallen into single file along the
narrow footpath, but Fisher stopped and let the rest go by.

"What be I goin' to do?" repeated
the old man, a little confused and glancing at Charley Burrill. "Well,
sir, my folks can celebrate as well as anybody round here, but 'twould
seem plain to Boston folks."

"Don't let Charley spoil
his nice new clothes with snapcrackers," said
Jim, and Charley Burrill blushed as was expected. He had said early in
the day that he was not going home for the Fourth, and they all knew the
reason. They had come to a turn in the road and Jim Fisher sprang on his
wheel and whirled away, leaving everybody to plod behind.

"Be careful, Charley!" he shouted,
and young Burrill shouted gayly back as he went down the lane with Abel
Thorndike. Thorndike's house was on the river bank, and there were some
apple-trees by it and a little flower-garden in front. As the two men came
to the gate a pretty girl looked out of the window and threw her sewing
on the table and came out to meet them.

Abel Thorndike sat on his doorstep
after supper, reading the "Life of Washington." The younger members of
his household were leaning over the gate talking and looking at the river.

"My pity sakes!" exclaimed Mr.
Thorndike, with enthusiasm. "Just see what a man Washington was! Here it
is in his great address: "Watch your majorities
as carefully as if they were kings,' says he: why, General
Washington was a prophet!"

The young lovers turned a little
embarrassed at being interrupted, while the old carpenter took off his
spectacles and laid down the big book with an impressive air. Charley began
to think that they had better walk down the lane.

"Here 'tis Fourth o' July again,
and how few folks thinks what it all means," said Abel. "I don't want to
waste as good a day as there is in the year. I always feel as if I ought
to go to meetin' part o' the day, and sit and
think about my country and them that give it to me."

"We're sober enough Decoration
Day," said Phebe. "Why, father, we ought to be gay 's we can Fourth
o' July; there's a time to rejoice, ain't there? I've got your flags all
ready to put right out in the morning anyway."

"Don't you be scared, Phebe!"
said the old man. "I'm goin' to rejoice. What have you two young creatures
got in mind to do? I don't expect you'll want me to go along anyway,[.]"
and he smiled at them with open recognition of a happy fact of which they
fancied him quite unconscious. They were not used to the happiness of being
lovers, and his face just then seemed the kindest face in the world.

"I've spoken for a team," said
Abel, innocently. "I knew Charley'd want one and you have to speak a long
while beforehand to get the best, such days. I'm goin' to give ye both
a first-rate ride in the afternoon an' in the evenin' I shall want Charley
to help me with my fireworks. I've done so well working all the spring
on this good job that I've got plenty o' money to fool round a little.
There's some boy left in me yet, old's I be. Some years in the past I ain't
been able to have anything but a good bonfire, but I've always had that."

"Good for you, sir!" said Charley
Burrill.

"It ain't a bit o' harm to have
a little pleasurin'; a good deal of a man's life has to be kind of dull,"
reflected Abel Thorndike, as he stood at the gate and watched the young
couple drive away. They had called to him in distress when they found the
one pleasure carriage which he allowed himself the summer through was a
single-seated buggy. Charley Burrill shouted for the stable boy who was
running up the lane. "You've made a mistake!" he said.

"No, no, 'twas just as I ordered;
you can go by yourselves to-day," and the father looked from one face to
the other. "I was young myself once, and I ain't ready either," he added,
by way of final excuse.

Phebe put her arm round her father's
neck and kissed him; she looked more like her mother than usual that day.
And Abel Thorndike felt a sudden pang of loneliness.

"There, there! you go off and
find some nice roads up country; I don't expect to see you till supper
time an' we'll make a light supper anyway after our good dinner o' lamb
an' green peas, 'tis my great treat," he said. "An' after dark we'll touch
the fireworks off. I shall be glad to set an' rest an' read my 'Life o'
Washington' an' I may get a nap!"

Burrill ventured to laugh, but
he had a new understanding of the happiness of holiday making, and started
off gayly to make the most of his afternoon.

Early that evening they watched
an eager crowd assembling on the opposite river bank.

"You see they always expect something
from me," said old Abel, apologetically. "This year I'm goin' to surprise
'em. Some say it's foolish to burn up money so, but folks about here don't
have the interests they do in Boston, an' 'tis one way to enjoy themselves.
I used to think when I was a boy and my folks were pinched an' poor, some
day I'd get ahead an' then nobody should forget the Fourth where I was.
'Tain't no common day, an' I ain't goin' to behave as if I thought so.
Phebe says you've given her an elegant time this afternoon, an' she's come
home happy's a queen. I feel grateful to see her so happy, and now we'll
fetch those boxes out o' the shop an' touch things off an' celebrate extra
this year. Folks say my fireworks always looks so pretty, all double an'
shinin' in the river."

Next day the shingling gang was
at work again, and all the hammers going inside and outside the great house.

"What did you do yesterday?"
somebody asked Jim Fisher.

"Oh, nothing particular. I didn't
spend a cent an' 'twas too hot to go off anywhere on my wheel," said Jim,
despondently. "'Tain't much of a day after you've got past snap crackers."

"You ought to have seen the way
they celebrate down here," announced Charley Burrill, proudly. "Best Fourth
I ever had!" and he and Abel Thorndike did not look at each other, but
their hearts seemed to touch.

"I always read a good long chapter
in my 'Life o' Washington,'" said old Abel, as he reached for more nails.
"Trouble is, you young fellows don't half know what a country you've got
behind you."

NOTES

"A Village Patriot" was purchased
from Jewett by the Bacheller Syndicate in 1896 and probably appeared in
several publications. One of these was the Boston Evening Transcript
(July 3, 1896). Diana Ben-Aaron of the University of Helsinki discovered
a copy in the New York
Times of July 4, 1896. Another was The
Pocket Magazine, where it was apparently reprinted in July 1897, (IV,3,
133-143), from which this text is taken. This copy is made available courtesy
of Jean-Paul Michaud. Richard Cary reprinted the text apparently from the
Evening
Transcript in Uncollected Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett. Errors
have been corrected, except where noted below, and indicated with brackets.
If you notice errors or items needing annotation, please contact the site
manager. [ Back ]

Fourth of July: Celebration
in the United States of the signing of the "Declaration of Independence"
on July 4, 1776. [ Back ]

Quick's: This text is inconsistent
in spacing for contractions with "as." I have left these as in the original. [ Back
]

'Anne Laurie':
Alicia Ann Spottiswoode, Lady John Montague-Douglas Scott (1810-1900),
is the author of the lyrics to the popular song, "Annie Laurie." [ Back
]

snapcrackers: firecrackers
for celebrating July 4. This word is variously given in the text, and I
have left the variations as in the original. [ Back
]

"Life of Washington"
... "Watch your great majorities as if they were kings":
The Life of Washington in which this quotation appears has not been
located, nor has the quotation itself been authenticated. Assistance is
welcome. [ Back
]

Decoration Day: Celebrated
on May 30 to honor the dead of the American Civil War by decorating their
graves. Later became Memorial Day, on which all deceased American veterans
are remembered. [ Back
]